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Neural Foundry's avatar

The fermion/boson distinction as a framework for understanding exclusive vs shared social resources is really elegant. I've been thinking alot about how political polarization makes identities more fermionic (rigid, exclusive, zero-sum), and this helps clarify why compromise becomes structurally harder in those conditions. The resonance model for movements makes intuitive sense too, especially how a single strong signal can synchronize disparate grievances into collective action.

John Tinker's avatar

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Regarding political polarization, and the rigidity you mention, this was represented as an ionic bond in this piece: https://johntinker.substack.com/p/democracy-fascism-and-binding-energies

Regarding resonance, a "binding energy" metaphor works to provide elements of coherent dynamism. Using the idea of a Hamiltonian on the total energy of a system is similar. It allows for action, and energetic connections that incorporate the passage of time, and phases of a system.